I
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 688
To require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to furnish tailored
information to expecting mothers, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JANUARY23, 2025
Ms. M
ACEintroduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee
on Energy and Commerce
A BILL
To require the Secretary of Health and Human Services
to furnish tailored information to expecting mothers, and
for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Standing with Moms 4
Act’’. 5
SEC. 2. AWARENESS FOR EXPECTING MOTHERS. 6
The Public Health Service Act is amended by adding 7
at the end the following: 8
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‘‘TITLE XXXIV—AWARENESS FOR 1
EXPECTING MOTHERS 2
‘‘SEC. 3401. WEBSITE AND PORTAL. 3
‘‘(a) W
EBSITE.—Not later than 1 year after the date 4
of enactment of this section, the Secretary shall publish 5
a user-friendly public website, life.gov, to provide a com-6
prehensive list of Federal, State, local governmental, and 7
private resources available to pregnant women including— 8
‘‘(1) resources to mental health counseling, 9
pregnancy counseling, and other prepartum and 10
postpartum services; 11
‘‘(2) comprehensive information on alternatives 12
to abortion; 13
‘‘(3) information about abortion risks, including 14
complications and failures; and 15
‘‘(4) links to information on child development 16
from moment of conception. 17
‘‘(b) P
ORTAL.—Not later than 1 year after the date 18
of enactment of this section, the Secretary shall publish 19
a portal on the public website of the Department of Health 20
and Human Services that— 21
‘‘(1) through a series of questions, will furnish 22
specific tailored information to the user on what 23
pregnancy-related information they are looking for, 24
such as— 25
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‘‘(A) Federal, State, local governmental, 1
and private resources that may be available to 2
the woman within her ZIP Code, including the 3
resources specified in subsection (c); and 4
‘‘(B) risks related to abortion at all stages 5
of fetal gestation; and 6
‘‘(2) provides for the submission of feedback on 7
how user-friendly and helpful the portal was in pro-8
viding the tailored information the user was seeking. 9
‘‘(c) R
ESOURCES.—The Federal, State, local govern-10
mental, and private resources specified in this subsection 11
are the following: 12
‘‘(1) Mentorship opportunities, including preg-13
nancy help and case management resources. 14
‘‘(2) Health and well-being services, including 15
women’s medical services such as obstetrical and 16
gynecological support services for women, abortion 17
pill reversal, breastfeeding, general health services, 18
primary care, and dental care. 19
‘‘(3) Financial assistance, work opportunities, 20
nutrition assistance, childcare, and education oppor-21
tunities. 22
‘‘(4) Material or legal support, including trans-23
portation, food, nutrition, clothing, household goods, 24
baby supplies, housing, shelters, maternity homes, 25
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tax preparation, legal support for child support, 1
family leave, breastfeeding protections, and custody 2
issues. 3
‘‘(5) Recovery and mental health services, in-4
cluding services with respect to addiction or suicide 5
intervention, intimate partner violence, sexual as-6
sault, rape, sex trafficking, and counseling for 7
women and families surrounding unexpected loss of 8
a child. 9
‘‘(6) Prenatal diagnostic services, including dis-10
ability support organizations, medical interventions 11
for a baby, perinatal hospice resources, pregnancy 12
and infant loss support, and literature on pregnancy 13
wellness. 14
‘‘(7) Healing and support services for abortion 15
survivors and their families. 16
‘‘(8) Services providing care for children, in-17
cluding family planning education, adoption, foster 18
care, and short-term care resources. 19
‘‘(d) A
DMINISTRATION.—The Secretary may not del-20
egate implementation or administration of the portal es-21
tablished under subsection (b) below the level of the Office 22
of the Secretary. 23
‘‘(e) F
OLLOW-UP.—The Secretary shall develop a 24
plan under which— 25
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‘‘(1) the Secretary includes in the portal estab-1
lished under subsection (b), a mechanism for users 2
of the portal to take an assessment through the por-3
tal and provide consent to use the user’s contact in-4
formation; 5
‘‘(2) the Secretary conducts outreach via phone 6
or email to follow up with users of the portal estab-7
lished under subsection (b) on additional resources 8
that would be helpful for the users to review; and 9
‘‘(3) upon the request of a user of the portal for 10
specific information, after learning of the additional 11
resources through the portal, agents of the Depart-12
ment of Health and Human Services make every ef-13
fort to furnish specific information to such user in 14
coordination with Federal, State, local governmental, 15
and private health care providers and resources. 16
‘‘(f) R
ESOURCELISTAGGREGATION.— 17
‘‘(1) I
N GENERAL.—Pursuant to criteria devel-18
oped in subsection (e)(2), each State shall provide 19
recommendations of State, local governmental, and 20
private resources under subsection (b)(1)(A) to in-21
clude in the portal. 22
‘‘(2) C
RITERIA FOR MAKING RECOMMENDA -23
TIONS.—The Secretary shall develop criteria to pro-24
vide to the States to determine whether resources 25
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recommended as described in paragraph (1) for in-1
clusion in the portal can appear in the portal. Such 2
criteria shall include the requirement that the re-3
source provider is not a prohibited entity and the re-4
quirement that the resource provider has been en-5
gaged in providing services for a minimum of 3 con-6
secutive years. 7
‘‘(3) G
RANT PROGRAM.— 8
‘‘(A) I
N GENERAL.—The Secretary may 9
provide grants to States to establish or support 10
a system that aggregates the resources de-11
scribed in subsection (b)(1)(A), in accordance 12
with the criteria developed under paragraph 13
(2), and that may be coordinated, to the extent 14
determined appropriate by the State, by a 15
statewide, regionally-based, or community-based 16
public entity or private nonprofit. 17
‘‘(B) A
PPLICATIONS.—To be eligible to re-18
ceive a grant under subparagraph (A), a State 19
shall submit an application to the Secretary at 20
such time, in such manner, and containing such 21
information as the Secretary may require, in-22
cluding a plan for outreach and awareness ac-23
tivities, and a list of service providers that 24
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would be included in the State system sup-1
ported by the grant. 2
‘‘(g) M
ATERNALMENTALHEALTHHOTLINE.—The 3
Secretary shall ensure that the Maternal Mental Health 4
Hotline of the Health Resources and Services Administra-5
tion— 6
‘‘(1) disseminates information regarding, and 7
linkages to, the life.gov website and portal described 8
in subsections (a) and (b); 9
‘‘(2) has the capacity to help families in every 10
State and community in the Nation; and 11
‘‘(3) includes live chat features, 24 hours a day, 12
to connect individuals to the information the portal 13
hosts. 14
‘‘(h) P
ROHIBITIONREGARDINGCERTAINENTI-15
TIES.—The resources listed on the life.gov website, and 16
made available through the portal and hotline established 17
under this section may not include any resource offered 18
by a prohibited entity. 19
‘‘(i) S
ERVICES INDIFFERENTLANGUAGES.—The 20
life.gov website and hotline shall ensure the widest possible 21
access to services for families who speak languages other 22
than English. 23
‘‘(j) R
EPORTINGREQUIREMENTS.— 24
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‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 180 days 1
after the date on which the life.gov website and por-2
tal are established under subsection (a), the Sec-3
retary shall submit to Congress a report on— 4
‘‘(A) the traffic of the website and the 5
interactive portal; 6
‘‘(B) user feedback on the accessibility and 7
helpfulness of the website and interactive portal 8
in tailoring to the user’s needs; 9
‘‘(C) insights on gaps in Federal, State, 10
local governmental, and private programming 11
with respect to services for pregnant and 12
postpartum women; and 13
‘‘(D) suggestions on how to improve user 14
experience and accessibility based on user feed-15
back and missing resources that would be help-16
ful to include in future updates. 17
‘‘(2) C
ONFIDENTIALITY.—The report under 18
paragraph (1) shall not include any personal identi-19
fying information regarding individuals who have 20
used the website or portal. 21
‘‘(k) D
EFINITIONS.—In this section: 22
‘‘(1) A
BORTION.—The term ‘abortion’ means 23
the use or prescription of any instrument, medicine, 24
drug, or other substance or device to intentionally— 25
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‘‘(A) kill the unborn child of a woman 1
known to be pregnant; or 2
‘‘(B) prematurely terminate the pregnancy 3
of a woman known to be pregnant, with an in-4
tention other than to— 5
‘‘(i) increase the probability of a live 6
birth or of preserving the life or health of 7
the child after live birth; or 8
‘‘(ii) remove a dead unborn child. 9
‘‘(2) B
ORN ALIVE.—The term ‘born alive’ has 10
the meaning given such term in section 8(b) of title 11
1, United States Code. 12
‘‘(3) P
ROHIBITED ENTITY.—The term ‘prohib-13
ited entity’ means an entity, including its affiliates, 14
subsidiaries, successors, and clinics that performs, 15
induces, refers for, or counsels in favor of abortions, 16
or provides financial support to any other organiza-17
tion that conducts such activities. 18
‘‘(4) U
NBORN CHILD.—The term ‘unborn child’ 19
means an individual organism of the species homo 20
sapiens, beginning at fertilization, until the point of 21
being born alive.’’. 22
Æ
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